Counsels and Maxims - Arthur Schopenhauer
SECTION 12.
In the case of a misfortune which has already happened and therefore
cannot be altered, you should not allow yourself to think that it
might have been otherwise; still less, that it might have been avoided
by such and such means; for reflections of this kind will only add
to your distress and make it intolerable, so that you will become a
tormentor to yourself--[Greek: heautontimoroumeaeos]. It is better to
follow the example of King David; who, as long as his son lay on the
bed of sickness, assailed Jehovah with unceasing supplications and
entreaties for his recovery; but when he was dead, snapped his fingers
and thought no more of it. If you are not light-hearted enough for
that, you can take refuge in fatalism, and have the great truth
revealed to you that everything which happens is the result of
necessity, and therefore inevitable.
However good this advice may be, it is one-sided and partial. In
relieving and quieting us for the moment, it is no doubt effective
enough; but when our misfortunes have resulted--as is usually the
case--from our own carelessness or folly, or, at any rate, partly by
our own fault, it is a good thing to consider how they might have
been avoided, and to consider it often in spite of its being a tender
subject--a salutary form of self-discipline, which will make us wiser
and better men for the future. If we have made obvious mistakes, we
should not try, as we generally do, to gloss them over, or to find
something to excuse or extenuate them; we should admit to ourselves
that we have committed faults, and open our eyes wide to all their
enormity, in order that we may firmly resolve to avoid them in time to
come. To be sure, that means a great deal of self-inflicted pain, in
the shape of discontent, but it should be remembered that to spare
the rod is to spoil the child--[Greek: ho mae dareis anthropos ou
paideuetai].[1]
[Footnote 1: Menander. Monost: 422.]
SECTION 13. In all matters affecting our weal or woe, we should be
careful not to let our imagination run away with us, and build no
castles in the air. In the first place, they are expensive to build,
because we have to pull them down again immediately, and that is
a source of grief. We should be still more on our guard against
distressing our hearts by depicting possible misfortunes. If these
were misfortunes of a purely imaginary kind, or very remote and
unlikely, we should at once see, on awaking from our dream, that the
whole thing was mere illusion; we should rejoice all the more in
a reality better than our dreams, or at most, be warned against
misfortunes which, though very remote, were still possible. These,
however, are not the sort of playthings in which imagination delights;
it is only in idle hours that we build castles in the air, and they
are always of a pleasing description. The matter which goes to form
gloomy dreams are mischances which to some extent really threaten us,
though it be from some distance; imagination makes us look larger and
nearer and more terrible than they are in reality. This is a kind of
dream which cannot be so readily shaken off on awaking as a pleasant
one; for a pleasant dream is soon dispelled by reality, leaving, at
most, a feeble hope lying in the lap of possibility. Once we have
abandoned ourselves to a fit of the blues, visions are conjured up
which do not so easily vanish again; for it is always just possible
that the visions may be realized. But we are not always able to
estimate the exact degree of possibility: possibility may easily
pass into probability; and thus we deliver ourselves up to torture.
Therefore we should be careful not to be over-anxious on any
matter affecting our weal or our woe, not to carry our anxiety to
unreasonable or injudicious limits; but coolly and dispassionately to
deliberate upon the matter, as though it were an abstract question
which did not touch us in particular. We should give no play to
imagination here; for imagination is not judgment--it only conjures up
visions, inducing an unprofitable and often very painful mood.
The rule on which I am here insisting should be most carefully
observed towards evening. For as darkness makes us timid and apt to
see terrifying shapes everywhere, there is something similar in the
effect of indistinct thought; and uncertainty always brings with it a
sense of danger. Hence, towards evening, when our powers of thought
and judgment are relaxed,--at the hour, as it were, of subjective
darkness,--the intellect becomes tired, easily confused, and unable
to get at the bottom of things; and if, in that state, we meditate
on matters of personal interest to ourselves, they soon assume a
dangerous and terrifying aspect. This is mostly the case at night,
when we are in bed; for then the mind is fully relaxed, and the power
of judgment quite unequal to its duties; but imagination is still
awake. Night gives a black look to everything, whatever it may be.
This is why our thoughts, just before we go to sleep, or as we lie
awake through the hours of the night, are usually such confusions and
perversions of facts as dreams themselves; and when our thoughts at
that time are concentrated upon our own concerns, they are generally
as black and monstrous as possible. In the morning all such nightmares
vanish like dreams: as the Spanish proverb has it, _noche tinta,
bianco el dia_--the night is colored, the day is white. But even
towards nightfall, as soon as the candles are lit, the mind, like the
eye, no longer sees things so clearly as by day: it is a time unsuited
to serious meditation, especially on unpleasant subjects. The morning
is the proper time for that--as indeed for all efforts without
exception, whether mental or bodily. For the morning is the youth of
the day, when everything is bright, fresh, and easy of attainment;
we feel strong then, and all our faculties are completely at our
disposal. Do not shorten the morning by getting up late, or waste it
in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence
of life, as to a certain extent sacred. Evening is like old age: we
are languid, talkative, silly. Each day is a little life: every waking
and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every
going to rest and sleep a little death.
But condition of health, sleep, nourishment, temperature, weather,
surroundings, and much else that is purely external, have, in general,
an important influence upon our mood and therefore upon our thoughts.
Hence both our view of any matter and our capacity for any work are
very much subject to time and place. So it is best to profit by a good
mood--for how seldom it comes!--
_Nehmt die gute Stimmung wahr,
Denn sie kommt so selten_.[1]
[Footnote 1: Goethe.]
We are not always able to form new ideas about; our surroundings, or
to command original thoughts: they come if they will, and when they
will. And so, too, we cannot always succeed in completely considering
some personal matter at the precise time at which we have determined
beforehand to consider it, and just when we set ourselves to do
so. For the peculiar train of thought which is favorable to it may
suddenly become active without any special call being made upon
it, and we may then follow it up with keen interest. In this way
reflection, too, chooses its own time.
This reining-in of the imagination which I am recommending, will also
forbid us to summon up the memory of the past misfortune, to paint
a dark picture of the injustice or harm that has been done us, the
losses we have sustained, the insults, slights and annoyances to which
we have been exposed: for to do that is to rouse into fresh life all
those hateful passions long laid asleep--the anger and resentment
which disturb and pollute our nature. In an excellent parable,
Proclus, the Neoplatonist, points out how in every town the mob dwells
side by side with those who are rich and distinguished: so, too, in
every man, be he never so noble and dignified, there is, in the depth
of his nature, a mob of low and vulgar desires which constitute him an
animal. It will not do to let this mob revolt or even so much as peep
forth from its hiding-place; it is hideous of mien, and its rebel
leaders are those flights of imagination which I have been describing.
The smallest annoyance, whether it comes from our fellow-men or from
the things around us, may swell up into a monster of dreadful aspect,
putting us at our wits' end--and all because we go on brooding over
our troubles and painting them in the most glaring colors and on the
largest scale. It is much better to take a very calm and prosaic view
of what is disagreeable; for that is the easiest way of bearing it.
If you hold small objects close to your eyes, you limit your field of
vision and shut out the world. And, in the same way, the people or the
things which stand nearest, even though they are of the very smallest
consequence, are apt to claim an amount of attention much beyond
their due, occupying us disagreeably, and leaving no room for serious
thoughts and affairs of importance. We ought to work against this
tendency.
SECTION 14. The sight of things which do not belong to us is very apt
to raise the thought: _Ah, if that were only mine_! making us sensible
of our privation. Instead of that we should do better by more
frequently putting to ourselves the opposite case: _Ah, if that were
not mine_. What I mean is that we should sometimes try to look upon
our possessions in the light in which they would appear if we had lost
them; whatever they may be, property, health, friends, a wife or child
or someone else we love, our horse or our dog--it is usually only when
we have lost them that we begin to find out their value. But if we
come to look at things in the way I recommend, we shall be doubly the
gainers; we shall at once get more pleasure out of them than we did
before, and we shall do everything in our power to prevent the loss
of them; for instance, by not risking our property, or angering our
friends, or exposing our wives to temptation, or being careless about
our children's health, and so on.
We often try to banish the gloom and despondency of the present by
speculating upon our chances of success in the future; a process which
leads us to invent a great many chimerical hopes. Every one of them
contains the germ of illusion, and disappointment is inevitable when
our hopes are shattered by the hard facts of life.
It is less hurtful to take the chances of misfortune as a theme for
speculation; because, in doing so, we provide ourselves at once with
measures of precaution against it, and a pleasant surprise when it
fails to make its appearance. Is it not a fact that we always feel a
marked improvement in our spirits when we begin to get over a period
of anxiety? I may go further and say that there is some use in
occasionally looking upon terrible misfortunes--such as might happen
to us--as though they had actually happened, for then the trivial
reverses which subsequently come in reality, are much easier to
bear. It is a source of consolation to look back upon those great
misfortunes which never happened. But in following out this rule,
care must be taken not to neglect what I have said in the preceding
section.
SECTION 15. The things which engage our attention--whether they are
matters of business or ordinary events--are of such diverse kinds,
that, if taken quite separately and in no fixed order or relation,
they present a medley of the most glaring contrasts, with nothing in
common, except that they one and all affect us in particular. There
must be a corresponding abruptness in the thoughts and anxieties which
these various matters arouse in us, if our thoughts are to be in
keeping with their various subjects. Therefore, in setting about
anything, the first step is to withdraw our attention from everything
else: this will enable us to attend to each matter at its own time,
and to enjoy or put up with it, quite apart from any thought of our
remaining interests. Our thoughts must be arranged, as it were, in
little drawers, so that we may open one without disturbing any of the
others.
In this way we can keep the heavy burden of anxiety from weighing upon
us so much as to spoil the little pleasures of the present, or from
robbing us of our rest; otherwise the consideration of one matter will
interfere with every other, and attention to some important business
may lead us to neglect many affairs which happen to be of less moment.
It is most important for everyone who is capable of higher and nobler
thoughts to keep their mind from being so completely engrossed with
private affairs and vulgar troubles as to let them take up all his
attention and crowd out worthier matter; for that is, in a very real
sense, to lose sight of the true end of life--_propter vitam vivendi
perdere causas_.
Of course for this--as for so much else--self-control is necessary;
without it, we cannot manage ourselves in the way I have described.
And self-control may not appear so very difficult, if we consider that
every man has to submit to a great deal of very severe control on the
part of his surroundings, and that without it no form of existence
is possible. Further, a little self-control at the right moment may
prevent much subsequent compulsion at the hands of others; just as a
very small section of a circle close to the centre may correspond to
a part near the circumference a hundred times as large. Nothing
will protect us from external compulsion so much as the control of
ourselves; and, as Seneca says, to submit yourself to reason is
the way to make everything else submit to you--_si tibi vis omnia
subjicere, te subjice rationi_. Self-control, too, is something which
we have in our own power; and if the worst comes to the worst, and it
touches us in a very sensitive part, we can always relax its severity.
But other people will pay no regard to our feelings, if they have
to use compulsion, and we shall be treated without pity or mercy.
Therefore it will be prudent to anticipate compulsion by self-control.
SECTION 16. We must set limits to our wishes, curb our desires,
moderate our anger, always remembering that an individual can attain
only an infinitesimal share in anything that is worth having; and
that, on the other hand, everyone must incur many of the ills of life;
in a word, we must bear and forbear--_abstinere et sustinere_; and
if we fail to observe this rule, no position of wealth or power will
prevent us from feeling wretched. This is what Horace means when he
recommends us to study carefully and inquire diligently what will
best promote a tranquil life--not to be always agitated by fruitless
desires and fears and hopes for things, which, after all, are not
worth very much:--
_Inter cuncta leges et percontabere doctos
Qua ratione queas traducere leniter aevum;
Ne te semper inops agitet vexetque cupido,
Ne pavor, et rerum mediocriter utilium spes.[1]_
[Footnote 1: Epist. I. xviii. 97.]
SECTION 17. Life consists in movement, says Aristotle; and he is
obviously right. We exist, physically, because our organism is the
seat of constant motion; and if we are to exist intellectually, it can
only be by means of continual occupation--no matter with what so long
as it is some form of practical or mental activity. You may see that
this is so by the way in which people who have no work or nothing to
think about, immediately begin to beat the devil's tattoo with their
knuckles or a stick or anything that comes handy. The truth is, that
our nature is essentially _restless_ in its character: we very soon
get tired of having nothing to do; it is intolerable boredom. This
impulse to activity should be regulated, and some sort of method
introduced into it, which of itself will enhance the satisfaction we
obtain. Activity!--doing something, if possible creating something, at
any rate learning something--how fortunate it is that men cannot exist
without that! A man wants to use his strength, to see, if he can, what
effect it will produce; and he will get the most complete satisfaction
of this desire if he can make or construct something--be it a book or
a basket. There is a direct pleasure in seeing work grow under one's
hands day by day, until at last it is finished. This is the pleasure
attaching to a work of art or a manuscript, or even mere manual labor;
and, of course, the higher the work, the greater pleasure it will
give.
From this point of view, those are happiest of all who are conscious
of the power to produce great works animated by some significant
purpose: it gives a higher kind of interest--a sort of rare flavor--to
the whole of their life, which, by its absence from the life of the
ordinary man, makes it, in comparison, something very insipid. For
richly endowed natures, life and the world have a special interest
beyond the mere everyday personal interest which so many others share;
and something higher than that--a formal interest. It is from life and
the world that they get the material for their works; and as soon
as they are freed from the pressure of personal needs, it is to
the diligent collection of material that they devote their whole
existence. So with their intellect: it is to some extent of a two-fold
character, and devoted partly to the ordinary affairs of every
day--those matters of will which are common to them and the rest of
mankind, and partly to their peculiar work--the pure and objective
contemplation of existence. And while, on the stage of the world, most
men play their little part and then pass away, the genius lives a
double life, at once an actor and a spectator.
Let everyone, then, do something, according to the measure of his
capacities. To have no regular work, no set sphere of activity--what a
miserable thing it is! How often long travels undertaken for pleasure
make a man downright unhappy; because the absence of anything that can
be called occupation forces him, as it were, out of his right element.
Effort, struggles with difficulties! that is as natural to a man as
grubbing in the ground is to a mole. To have all his wants satisfied
is something intolerable--the feeling of stagnation which comes
from pleasures that last too long. To overcome difficulties is
to experience the full delight of existence, no matter where the
obstacles are encountered; whether in the affairs of life, in commerce
or business; or in mental effort--the spirit of inquiry that tries
to master its subject. There is always something pleasurable in the
struggle and the victory. And if a man has no opportunity to excite
himself, he will do what he can to create one, and according to his
individual bent, he will hunt or play Cup and Ball: or led on by this
unsuspected element in his nature, he will pick a quarrel with some
one, or hatch a plot or intrigue, or take to swindling and rascally
courses generally--all to put an end to a state of repose which is
intolerable. As I have remarked, _difficilis in otio quies_--it is
difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do.
SECTION 18. A man should avoid being led on by the phantoms of his
imagination. This is not the same thing as to submit to the guidance
of ideas clearly thought out: and yet these are rules of life which
most people pervert. If you examine closely into the circumstances
which, in any deliberation, ultimately turn the scale in favor of
some particular course, you will generally find that the decision is
influenced, not by any clear arrangement of ideas leading to a formal
judgment, but by some fanciful picture which seems to stand for one of
the alternatives in question.
In one of Voltaire's or Diderot's romances,--I forget the precise
reference,--the hero, standing like a young Hercules at the parting
of ways, can see no other representation of Virtue than his old tutor
holding a snuff-box in his left hand, from which he takes a pinch
and moralizes; whilst Vice appears in the shape of his mother's
chambermaid. It is in youth, more especially, that the goal of our
efforts comes to be a fanciful picture of happiness, which continues
to hover before our eyes sometimes for half and even for the whole of
our life--a sort of mocking spirit; for when we think our dream is to
be realized, the picture fades away, leaving us the knowledge that
nothing of what it promised is actually accomplished. How often this
is so with the visions of domesticity--the detailed picture of what
our home will be like; or, of life among our fellow-citizens or in
society; or, again, of living in the country--the kind of house we
shall have, its surroundings, the marks of honor and respect that will
be paid to us, and so on,--whatever our hobby may be; _chaque fou a
sa marotte_. It is often the same, too, with our dreams about one we
love. And this is all quite natural; for the visions we conjure up
affect us directly, as though they were real objects; and so they
exercise a more immediate influence upon our will than an abstract
idea, which gives merely a vague, general outline, devoid of details;
and the details are just the real part of it. We can be only
indirectly affected by an abstract idea, and yet it is the abstract
idea alone which will do as much as it promises; and it is the
function of education to teach us to put our trust in it. Of course
the abstract idea must be occasionally explained--paraphrased, as it
were--by the aid of pictures; but discreetly, _cum grano salis_.
SECTION 19. The preceding rule may be taken as a special case of the
more general maxim, that a man should never let himself be mastered
by the impressions of the moment, or indeed by outward appearances at
all, which are incomparably more powerful in their effects than the
mere play of thought or a train of ideas; not because these momentary
impressions are rich in virtue of the data they supply,--it is often
just the contrary,--but because they are something palpable to the
senses and direct in their working; they forcibly invade our mind,
disturbing our repose and shattering our resolutions.
It is easy to understand that the thing which lies before our very
eyes will produce the whole of its effect at once, but that time and
leisure are necessary for the working of thought and the appreciation
of argument, as it is impossible to think of everything at one and the
same moment. This is why we are so allured by pleasure, in spite of
all our determination to resist it; or so much annoyed by a criticism,
even though we know that its author it totally incompetent to
judge; or so irritated by an insult, though it comes from some very
contemptible quarter. In the same way, to mention no other instances,
ten reasons for thinking that there is no danger may be outweighed by
one mistaken notion that it is actually at hand. All this shows the
radical unreason of human nature. Women frequently succumb altogether
to this predominating influence of present impressions, and there are
few men so overweighted with reason as to escape suffering from a
similar cause.
If it is impossible to resist the effects of some external influence
by the mere play of thought, the best thing to do is to neutralize it
by some contrary influence; for example, the effect of an insult may
be overcome by seeking the society of those who have a good opinion of
us; and the unpleasant sensation of imminent danger may be avoided by
fixing our attention on the means of warding it off.
Leibnitz[1] tells of an Italian who managed to bear up under the
tortures of the rack by never for a moment ceasing to think of the
gallows which would have awaited him, had he revealed his secret; he
kept on crying out: _I see it! I see it_!--afterwards explaining that
this was part of his plan.
[Footnote 1: _Nouveaux Essais_. Liv. I. ch. 2. Sec. 11.]
It is from some such reason as this, that we find it so difficult to
stand alone in a matter of opinion,--not to be made irresolute by the
fact that everyone else disagrees with us and acts accordingly, even
though we are quite sure that they are in the wrong. Take the case of
a fugitive king who is trying to avoid capture; how much consolation
he must find in the ceremonious and submissive attitude of a faithful
follower, exhibited secretly so as not to betray his master's strict
_incognito_; it must be almost necessary to prevent him doubting his
own existence.
SECTION 20. In the first part of this work I have insisted upon the
great value of _health_ as the chief and most important element in
happiness. Let me emphasize and confirm what I have there said by
giving a few general rules as to its preservation.
The way to harden the body is to impose a great deal of labor and
effort upon it in the days of good health,--to exercise it, both as a
whole and in its several parts, and to habituate it to withstand all
kinds of noxious influences. But on the appearance of an illness or
disorder, either in the body as a whole or in many of its parts, a
contrary course should be taken, and every means used to nurse the
body, or the part of it which is affected, and to spare it any effort;
for what is ailing and debilitated cannot be hardened.